Challenge

Harvey Nichols is an iconic landmark built in 1894 in London’s luxury retail district of Knightsbridge and a globally renowned fashion and shopping brand. Our client Cadogan Estates, a dynamic property manager, investor and developer, was lacking any current digital copies of its drawings.

Having successfully tendered, we were tasked with supplying measured survey drawings featuring external elevations and detailed floor plans for all 11 levels. These would serve as a benchmark for evaluating the building’s dimensions and determining the usable space for retail, office, and other purposes.

Approach

Sensitivity needed to be applied to all aspects of this project and to minimise disruption to regular business operations, access was restricted to the hours of 6am to 10am on weekdays only. With an estimated 20,000 m² of floor area over 11 floors, 120 hours was allocated to complete the drawings within these timeframes.

The site inspection commenced with an external survey of the building’s facades using 3D laser scanning. Black and white scans set to medium resolution were selected, allowing us to capture approximately 2 million points per second, with a 1mm density.

Opting to connect an iPad via Bluetooth to the scanner also gave access to a broader array of settings allowing the team to assess the quality and completeness of the data capture, ensuring no part of the survey was left unrecorded.

Focus for the internal building survey included the retail space, restaurants and bars, storage areas and backrooms, back-of-house circulation zones, service areas, plant rooms, management offices, and ultimately, the roof.

The roof survey presented significant difficulties due to the entire structure filled with plant machinery and equipment. Thanks to the use of 3D laser scanning technology, the team successfully navigated these obstacles.

Outcome

By the conclusion of the survey, 1,250 individual scans had been completed, resulting in a total of 2.5 billion 3D points.

The uploaded data was processed using Leica Cyclone, a leading registering software. The software helps to accurately review, analyse, align, consolidate, and register the data captured by each scanning location into a single point cloud, looking for either geo-referenced scan data or areas with overlapping details.

The survey did not require referencing the Ordnance Survey National Grid, so a local arbitrary datum was assigned to the survey and our in-house quality control team ensured standards met band D of the “Survey accuracy band table” from RICS “Measured Surveys of Land, Buildings and Utilities, 3rd edition”.

Successfully delivering the Harvey Nichols measured building survey now allows our client to access digital drawings for future space use analysis and ongoing management of the building.